


Honored Flesh

by draculard



Category: Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Eating Disorders, Extremely Dubious Consent, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Hypersexuality, Imprinting, M/M, Master/Servant, Mild Gore, Post-Bilbringi AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Scent Kink, Suicidal Thoughts, Thrawn Lives AU, Torture, codependent relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27841480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: It is not Rukh's duty to give Thrawn what he wants. It is Rukh's duty toserve.
Relationships: Background Gilad Pellaeon/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo, Rukh/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NadiaYar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadiaYar/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Чтимая плоть](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28240347) by [NadiaYar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadiaYar/pseuds/NadiaYar)



> This is based heavily off NadiaYar's headcanons for the Noghri execution rites. Thank you for all your notes and support!
> 
> Say wassup on tumblr. My name is draculard there, too.

The execution was cut short.

After nightfall of the first day, it was Rukh who cut the blood-slick leather ties binding Thrawn to four wooden posts. He wedged his knife-blade between the leather and Thrawn’s already-torn skin, splitting the ties without effort but coating his blade in wet red slick. When Thrawn’s left hand came free and started to drop, Rukh caught him at the forearm, his fingers coming down on a narrow strip of unwounded flesh, and gently bent his arm up at the joint.

It was slow work, and inevitably painful, and when all four ties were cut, Rukh lifted the limp body into his arms and carried Thrawn to shelter. He kept his breathing very carefully under control, knowing the eyes of all the Noghri warriors were on him. For two days during their travel to Honoghr, he had been forced to share a seat in the narrow cockpit of his TIE Interceptor with Thrawn, who had been stunned and bound and lay limp beneath Rukh the entire flight. They’d flown without stopping, Thrawn kept unconscious by a cocktail of drugs, neither of them able to eat or drink without unsealing their flight suits.

By the time he’d landed on Honoghr and unsealed the egress hatch, he’d almost forgotten how to discern between his scent and Thrawn’s. Two days cramped together in such a small space had mingled their scents so thoroughly it was disorienting. But Rukh had been able to eat and refresh himself before the execution began, and that went a long way toward helping him; he’d watched from the sidelines, regaining his strength and separating Thrawn’s scent from his own, as other Noghri stripped the Grand Admiral of his flight suit and slipped a gag between his lips, tying his wrists and ankles to stakes driven into the ground.

As Rukh ate, he could hear the Dynasts muttering nearby, their arguments faintly audible from the door of the Grand Dukha. They were trying to determine the nature of the execution’s first stage — public shaming, which could take a dozen different forms. There was no real question what they would decide; Thrawn’s scent hung thick over Honoghr’s poisoned fields, and every Noghri he glanced at could be spotted breathing it in, nostrils flaring, chins lifting, eyes sliding closed in appreciation.

He could smell arousal from his fellow warriors. He could smell arousal from himself, too; later, when a handful of the _Mal’ary’ush’s_ allies arrived to watch, he would smell it from some of them, too. 

He had just finished his repast when the execution began. Aside from short breaks for the executioners to rest (and to revive an unconscious prisoner), it would not stop again until the beginning of the third stage, when the gag was removed and a knife blade pressed against Thrawn’s tongue — and only then did Thrawn have the chance to defend himself, risking injury to speak. Words spilled from him, barely intelligible due to his thick accent, listlessness, mindless pain. 

Rukh was stationed at Thrawn’s shoulder at the time, the blue skin torn apart, the muscle beneath it exposed and red and raw. There was no scent of fear, only quiet determination as he explained everything — about the droids and the kholm-grass — about the armored god who had killed their greatest warriors and deceived them all as well. 

The Dynasts had heard the explanation and retreated to consider each word; the New Republicans had been arrested, though tentatively; Thrawn himself had remained outside for only an hour or so, his wounds cauterized but still weeping, his hands tugging half-consciously and futilely against the bonds whenever his mind left him and he forgot where he was.

Rukh stayed outside with him until one of the Dynasts gave him the go-ahead to bring Thrawn inside, settling down not far from the execution site to watch Thrawn’s muted struggles. He counted the times Thrawn slipped into unconsciousness again; it was easy to do so, because every time his eyes closed and his body sagged, Rukh took to his feet and padded over to take Thrawn’s pulse and ensure he was still breathing. 

It was possible — even common — to die during the second stage of execution, the ritual wounding. For Thrawn, who’d had neither food nor water for two days prior, and who’d been subjected to not six but twelve executioners during the public shaming, the risk was even greater. By the time the Dynasts allowed Rukh to cut the prisoner’s ties, he couldn’t help noticing Thrawn’s body seemed lighter than before — from dehydration, from minor starvation, from the way his body had purged itself involuntarily of all contents during the break between the public shaming and the wounding, and most importantly, from the sheer amount of flesh that had been ripped from his bones.

Thrawn came awake in the healing center, his eyes hooded, his lashes crusted with blood. He seemed barely cognizant of his surroundings as Rukh’s thumb caressed his bottom lip and gently opened his mouth; Thrawn made no attempt to bite him, even in the brief period where Rukh’s thumb was between his teeth. His mouth was lined by sores caused by dehydration, the skin split and clotted with dark spots of blood. 

“Drink,” Rukh said.

He held a wooden cup to Thrawn’s lips and tipped the analgesic down his throat. An herbal scent mingled with the smells of blood, burnt flesh, disorientation and pain. If Thrawn had been unconscious when the gag was removed — if he’d been a little less quick to speak — then there would be no tongue here to swallow the analgesic, no nose for Rukh to pinch so he could force his half-conscious patient to swallow. No patient at all. 

He set the cup down and turned away, intending to call the healers for preliminary wound care, but he was stopped by a heavy, clumsy hand which fell on his forearm, fingers grasping weakly at him and pulling him back to Thrawn’s bedside.

Thrawn’s hooded eyes took in the room around him. Rukh could smell him becoming more alert as the painkiller did its work.

“Alone?” Thrawn said, his neck and shoulders so damaged that he couldn’t lift his head to see for himself. Rukh leaned closer, inhaling Thrawn’s scent.

“Yes,” he said.

He saw the sharp light of understanding in Thrawn’s eyes and knew that he had put the pieces together properly. With the high level of pain and disorientation inside him now, it was likely he couldn’t remember the exact sequence of events, couldn’t be sure whether he’d really explained Darth Vader’s crimes or if the whole scenario was a pain-fueled hallucination. Now, alone in a medical tent with no one but Rukh to watch over him, he knew.

His hand clutched weakly to Rukh’s arm, the bones of his wrist showing through split blue flesh. It was not the soft touch of one man trying to gain another’s attention; it was desperate clinging, like that of a drowned man searching for the skin of another sentient being somewhere in the swirling water. Even if Thrawn’s face betrayed no emotion, his scent told Rukh all he needed to know.

“Rukh,” Thrawn said with great effort, “come closer.”

Without hesitation, Rukh bent his ear until he could feel Thrawn’s lips brushing his skin as they moved. The scent of death filled his nostrils, mixed irrevocably with the scent of arousal, with his own seed, with Thrawn’s unshakable will. Earlier — buried deep in Thrawn’s hot insides, with his teeth digging into Thrawn’s shoulder — Rukh had felt the stirrings of sexual imprint inside himself, binding his scent to that of Thrawn’s for as long as he should live. Now, he felt a different type of imprint stirring inside Thrawn, binding them together just as strongly — the helpless imprint of an injured animal on its rescuer, even if that rescuer was the same person who wounded it.

“Vow your fealty,” Thrawn whispered, his scent entwined with Rukh’s, “to Leia Organa Solo. Even if no one else among the Noghri does.” His grip loosened, tightened again. He didn’t ask if Organa Solo was here, in custody, and Rukh suspected he didn’t need to. His eyelids slid shut against his will and stayed that way, the lashes glued together by drying blood. “Convince her of your loyalty,” he said.

Rukh said nothing; this close to Thrawn’s chest, he could smell the poisoned dirt of Honoghr on Thrawn’s charred skin, mixed with his own seed and that of his fellow executioners, their sweat and saliva mingling with Thrawn’s, the smell of blood and bodily waste even thicker beneath all of that. Rukh fingered his knife, reminding himself it was there. If the Dynasts’ decision was not in Thrawn’s favor, it would be far kinder for Rukh to slit his throat than to let the execution continue; he would bear the consequences of disobedience himself.

Rukh called the healers and set about bathing the damaged body of the man who had become his master once again. 


	2. Chapter 2

Thrawn was a taxing master — a challenging master — but he never required ego-stroking shows of subservience from the Noghri; they gave it to him willingly, as they’d given it to Darth Vader when he demanded it, and their honor code would not allow them to treat one master differently from the next. Even if the master tried to tell them not to bow to him or to dispense with their ceremonies, as Thrawn once had before realizing it was futile. Even if the master claimed subservience was not what he wanted.

It was not Rukh’s duty to give Thrawn what he wanted. It was Rukh’s duty to _serve_.

Noghri young did not wail when distressed; they mewled, and they were comforted in a manner entirely different from human younglings. Noghri sires responded to each cry with an answering growl, a low-pitch frequency that seemed to vibrate from their throats and drill right through the child’s chest. The growls had a soothing effect, capable of lowering a rapid heart-rate, relaxing lungs which had seized up in panic; at the same time, a comforting pheromone, one designed by millennia of evolution to relax the muscles, was released by the caretaker until their young had gone to sleep.

Human parents might rock a frightened child or whisper soothing words. Rukh didn’t know what Chiss parents might do; he only knew that as he tended Thrawn’s damaged body with a bowl of warm water, he emitted the same low growl he might emit to a distressed child, and the combination of his sounds and his scent with the painkiller he’d administered kept Thrawn from fighting back. 

This was not what Thrawn wanted; he didn’t want comfort, perhaps because there was no one present to give it to him except for Rukh, or perhaps because it wasn’t in his nature. At the same time, instinctively — Rukh could smell it — he craved it the same way any distressed animal would. His skin sang for contact, even if it caused him pain; he leaned into Rukh’s hands, even when it meant rough fingers slipping over his wounds, claws glancing off exposed bones, dipping into cauterized pits of flesh. 

When the healers were done — or mostly so — Rukh cupped the back of Thrawn’s skull with his hand, now-white strands of hair still wet from the makeshift bath he’d been given but no longer dirty. He lifted Thrawn’s head for him and cradled it a few centimeters off the blood-stained mattress. His thumb brushed against the corner of Thrawn’s left eye until Thrawn’s lids flickered open and he focused on the holodisc Rukh was holding up before him.

“I must contact the _Chimaera_ ,” Rukh said, still in the same low growl he might use to comfort a child. “The Dynasts have acquitted you of all further crimes; the punishment for deception has already been leveled. You are free to go.”

Thrawn stared at the holodisc, his expression wooden and unchanging. He made no move to take it; he didn’t even glance at Rukh. Here was his chance for survival, and he didn’t grasp for it. He scarcely seemed to care.

“One condition,” Rukh told him.

Thrawn inclined his head as much as he could with Rukh’s fingers tangled in his hair. “I understand,” he said.

Did he? Rukh studied Thrawn’s face a moment longer. He didn’t doubt that Thrawn was capable of predicting Rukh’s demands, but he refused to press the transmit button until he had verbal confirmation; after a moment, Thrawn’s eyes flickered sideways to meet his, his chest moving up and down in inaudible, shallow breaths.

“This is the … end of the punishment?” he asked, his tone flat, turning the question from a plea for safety into something else entirely. His eyes burned into Rukh’s, giving him an unspoken command.

_Just kill me._

Thrawn was no longer the Noghris’ master. He was no longer anything more than another wounded animal waiting to be rescued or put down. There were no demands to be made on Rukh’s loyalty, and with the room so full of witnesses, there was little he could say to reassure Thrawn.

But no, he would not kill his master. He shook his head without putting any of his real intentions into words and saw something flatten and harden in Thrawn’s eyes. Disappointment, muted rage, a swelling grief for his body, for his life before today, for the end that might have graced him: Rukh could smell each emotion wafting from Thrawn’s skin now as he withdrew into himself, his expression blank. 

A less intelligent man might lash out — might tell his fleet what the Noghri had done and insist upon vengeance, then gladly die in the turbolaser fire along with his torturers. But Rukh and Thrawn both knew Pellaeon would never unleash lasers on a planet for vengeance — not when his admiral was there, injured but alive, in need of rescue. Similarly, they both knew what would happen if Pellaeon attempted a rescue while simultaneously vowing vengeance on the Noghri. Thrawn would likely die as a hostage, and Rukh doubted he cared about that possibility — but how many of his precious stormtroopers, clones and natural-born alike, would die, too?

Too many for Thrawn to ignore. Somehow, he had exempted himself from his mental list of the Empire’s greatest resources; he could not do the same to the troopers, even now.

Thrawn’s eyes slid closed.

“Then I will tell Captain Pellaeon… not to take vengeance… on Honoghr,” he said, his speech labored, his tongue still heavy in his mouth. “Nor… on the Noghri people.”

The Noghri healers, the witnesses crowded throughout the room, and the Dynasts all stirred, each of them breathing in Thrawn’s scent with varying degrees of subtlety. Rukh could smell it, too; Thrawn was telling the truth. Honesty sang in his blood and drifted from the open pits of his wounds. Rukh loosened his grip on Thrawn’s hair and held up the holodisc, rubbing his thumb soothingly over Thrawn’s scalp where he’d been tugging a bit too hard a moment before.

His other thumb rested over the transmit button. Thrawn watched him, eyes shifting, lips tight.

“Wait,” he said raggedly just as Rukh started to press down. Rukh froze and met Thrawn’s eyes, waiting for him to continue. “Not like this,” Thrawn said.

Rukh’s eyes scanned down his master’s body, nude and heavily damaged. Everywhere he looked, he saw burnt flesh and exposed muscle, eschar and dried blood working together to change the color of Thrawn’s skin everywhere except the few places he’d been left untouched — his nose, his genitals. If not for his scent, Rukh might think he were dead. Only the unsullied skin on his face and the animated nature of his eyes and mouth signified life for the less-sensory humans Thrawn would be speaking with over comm. Worse than all this was the whitened hair, which told anyone who saw Thrawn not just that he had been tortured, but that it had affected him — and affected him badly.

But there was little Rukh could do. To drape a blanket over Thrawn for privacy would hurt him more than help him; the fibers could get caught in his wounds, risking infection only to satisfy an irrational desire for dignity when — until he properly healed — Thrawn wouldn’t be capable of dignity again for quite some time. There was only one concession Rukh could make; he pressed his thumb against his own tongue, let his saliva coat his skin, and then leaned forward, pressing Thrawn’s eyelids shut. Gently, he rubbed away the crust of dried blood on Thrawn’s eyelashes, dislodging every clot and then wiping them from his cheekbones with the edge of his hand. 

Thrawn held still throughout the treatment, his breathing shallow; he leaned unconsciously into Rukh’s hand. The bath had washed away most traces of the other eleven executioners from his skin; now with this final cleansing gesture, the strongest scents that remained were Rukh’s and Thrawn’s.

Rukh pressed the transmit button and held the holodisc up so Thrawn could speak.


	3. Chapter 3

Deep in the night as they waited for the _Chimaera_ to come, Rukh fed Thrawn dollops of herbal analgesic and whispered tales of the Noghri to him. He listened to each labored breath and hiss of pain, weighed the scent of hopelessness vs. the animalistic desire to live and found the latter dangerously absent.

There had been a time once — years ago now — when Thrawn had called Rukh into his bedroom chamber late at night. His hair had been mussed and his face drawn with quiet weariness; the scent of insomnia mixed with the glacial smell of memory hung thick over his bed. He didn’t have to tell Rukh then that his thoughts were keeping him awake. He’d reached a hand out from beneath the covers, his skin soft and hyper-sensitive from sleep, and beckoned him closer, allowed Rukh to press his nose against the heel of Thrawn’s palm and breathe in deep.

“Speak to me, Rukh,” Thrawn had murmured, his head lolling back against the pillow. “Tell me of your people.”

It was the first and only night when Rukh attempted to lull Thrawn to sleep with the myths and legends of the Noghri. He’d learned his lesson then; after two hours of speaking, Rukh’s voice had gone hoarse and Thrawn’s eyes had still been fixed on him, hooded and weary but still alert. He’d learned that day that when Thrawn said “speak to me,” he didn’t want stories — even if he thought he did. He wanted something inane to set his mind at rest, something meaningless. Legends were art. Art was never meaningless for Thrawn.

So now, when Thrawn wanted the darkness to take him, Rukh stood watch by his sickbed and murmured to him in low tones about the Noghri legends he’d been raised with. At first, he told each story quietly, succinctly, embellishing no aspect of the tale and ending them the same way he’d first heard them long ago. He saw to Thrawn’s body as he worked, administering stims and analgesic, cleaning the wounds over and over again, changing the absorbent pad stuck between his unmoving legs to catch blood, discharge, waste.

But Thrawn’s attention drifted. His eyes grew dull; his interest waned. 

Rukh tried again, now fighting for any sign of curiosity from a man who’d once been utterly incapable of quelling it. He spoke of famed Noghri warriors and dark forces with which the heroes formed alliances; he prolonged the tragic ending to his tale one scene at a time, allowing his mouth to move of its own accord, spinning stories that were more like lies.

Stories that didn’t end. Stories that prevented Thrawn from closing his eyes even as his pulse grew thready and weak and the healers gave Rukh pensive glances from the other side of the bed.

He didn’t stop speaking until the _Chimaera_ arrived at dawn and the humans took his master away. 


	4. Chapter 4

The voice from the sickbed was labored but clear, each long pause giving Thrawn time to breathe around his pain and ensure each word was properly enunciated so he wouldn’t have to repeat. He had scarcely any use of his lips; the sores there meant he could barely close them to form certain consonants; working past this, he parted his lips and bared his teeth in something which, combined with his pain-dazed eyes, looked like a snarl.

Even so, his men didn’t flinch. They took in his appearance with stony expressions, waited for him to speak with eerie patience.

“Rukh… rescued me… from a previously-unknown… threat,” Thrawn said.

Even on the other side of the tent, Rukh could still smell the disbelief coming from Captain Pellaeon, who stood at Thrawn’s bedside. His hands were planted on the edge of the woven mattress, close enough to almost touch Thrawn; so close, in fact, that the absence of touch seemed deliberate, as if he’d considered comforting his superior officer and then decided against it. The stormtroopers worked around Pellaeon to lift Thrawn gently, grabbing the woven mattress beneath him rather than his limbs and transferring him slowly onto a hover-gurney they’d brought planet-side when they landed.

Pellaeon’s eyes flicked up, meeting Rukh’s. His expression was flat and hard.

“Did he, now,” he said to Thrawn, not a question. Thrawn didn’t answer; his head lolled when the troopers transferred him from bed to gurney; they were as gentle as could be, and even so the pain seared through him, setting every nerve-ending alight. He was past keeping quiet; each spike of pain brought a weak sound from his lips, half a gasp and half a growl. To stifle these noises would, by now, only make the pain worse.

“...not to hurt him,” Rukh heard Thrawn say. His eyes were closed, his lips scarcely moving as he spoke. There was dried blood caught in the cracks between his teeth. “...no repercussions…”

Pellaeon’s face tightened. He ordered the stormtroopers out of the healing tent with a sharp stabbing gesture and followed them out as they guided the gurney between them. His shoulders were high and tense, his gait stiff with anger. He didn’t look back at Rukh as he left.

He didn’t see Rukh following, chasing Thrawn’s scent for as long as he could.

“—save your strength,” Rukh heard the captain saying. 

As if Thrawn had any strength left to save. As if Thrawn would appreciate inane, condescending chatter like that. If Pellaeon had even a tenth of Thrawn’s acuity — or even a tenth of _Rukh’s_ — he would know that what Thrawn needed was practical care to keep his body living; mental stimulation to keep him from succumbing to death; and the low growl of a Noghri to comfort him on a level so instinctual he possibly didn’t realize it was comforting him at all. This was a sound Pellaeon was incapable of making; a role Pellaeon was incapable of taking on.

A role only Rukh could fill.

He followed the gurney silently, unnoticed and unheard by the humans, his chest swelling with possessive pride. 

“Don’t speak,” he heard Pellaeon tell Thrawn. And then, so softly that Thrawn was surely lying there enraged by his tone: “It’s alright, sir. You’re almost safe. We’re entering the shuttle now.”

A sense of triumph suffused Rukh, filling his entire body with a warm glow. Without realizing it, Pellaeon was saying all the wrong things, driving Thrawn back from him even as he tried to take him away. The winds of Honoghr snatched Thrawn’s scent away, made it impossible for Rukh to read him — but he didn’t need to smell the disdain on Thrawn’s skin to know it was there. 

He watched the stormtroopers guide Thrawn’s gurney up the shuttle ramp. He watched Pellaeon walk alongside, his head bent as if studying Thrawn’s face. The wind blew just right for just one second, giving Rukh a whiff of restless sleep, of muted distress and pain.

He watched Thrawn reach out, unconscious, and grasp at Pellaeon’s hand. He watched Pellaeon take it carefully, gently, avoiding the spots where skin had sloughed away to reveal muscle and bone. The scent of distress eased and faded even as Pellaeon’s thumb stroked over an open sore and caused Thrawn’s pain level to crest again, almost waking him. The wind changed, and Rukh couldn’t tell what emotion took over after that.

When the shuttle doors closed and the repulsorlifts engaged, carrying Thrawn back to the _Chimaera_ , Rukh was left behind on the poisoned surface of Honoghr, his body numb and cold.


	5. Chapter 5

Rukh wasn’t the only Noghri to swear loyalty to the _Mal’ary’ush_ , but after Khabarakh, he was the first. He knelt before her and took her hand while she was still bound at the wrists — in a far more comfortable position than Thrawn had been, and fully clothed — awaiting the Dynasts’ sentencing.

The poisoning was Vader’s alone; the deception was shared by Thrawn and the New Republicans who now stood corralled outside the Grand Dukha. Their heads were held high, their eyes defiant as they awaited their fate. Thrawn, undeniably, had been punished for _his_ deception. It was only just that the New Republicans be punished, too—

—but staring at the New Republicans, Rukh sensed with a sinking heart that they would not be. Vader was no mere man; he was a god, and a god can be just or unjust, merciful or cruel, as he so chooses. If Vader chose to poison Honoghr, then — a bitter taste slicked Rukh’s tongue at the thought – then he was right to do so. The Noghri around him, despite Thrawn’s revelations, were overall still loyal to Lord Vader. For some of them — a great deal of them — this loyalty extended to his blood, if not as a desire to serve her then as a desire to protect her.

Thrawn did not have divine blood to protect him. But it was no matter; when Rukh stepped up to Leia, inhaled her scent, he pushed back his rage over her deception — and his guilt over its consequences — and forced himself into a deep bow.

“ _Mal’ary’ush_ ,” he growled. “I await your command.”

Her eyes raked over him critically before shifting away, to an area where the dirt had turned to mud and four wooden stakes were still wedged into the ground. She didn’t order him to untie her hands or rescue her; perhaps she recognized this was an order he could not yet follow, or perhaps she knew that to order such a thing would demonstrate a lack of confidence unbefitting of the Lady Vader.

Instead, raising her bound hands, she pointed toward the stakes.

“Not far from there,” she said, “is a mounted recording rod. I’d like you to retrieve it for me, Rukh, and give it to my husband here.”

Rukh studied the _Mal’ary’ush’s_ mate a moment before he nodded. As he turned, the sour taste in his mouth grew stronger, threatening to overwhelm him; it took great effort to walk without a certain stiffness in his stride giving his true feelings away.

He found the recording rod on a discreet tripod fifteen meters back from where Thrawn had been publicly shamed. He’d been unable to smell its plastoid stench during the ceremony, too distracted by the far more pleasing scents coming from Thrawn. Its feedback screen showed the scene directly ahead of Rukh: crude-cut leather thongs that lifted in the wind and fell back against the stakes they were tied to with an almost inaudible tapping sound; still recording, then.

Did the device belong to the _Mal’ary’ush_ or her mate? It had both their scents on it, and it was a cheap but serviceable model, the kind used by Senators to make transcripts of government meetings – and also by travelers to entertain themselves on long trips with two-dimensional vids. Rukh could feel the weight of a dozen or so storage crystals inside the rod, and as he made his way back to the New Republicans, he contemplated unscrewing the access panel — a twist of the little finger was all it would take — and palming one of the crystals, stealing the footage they’d taken of Thrawn during the public shaming.

It was too risky. Neither _Mal’ary’ush_ nor her mate were stupid. They would notice the missing crystal, and no matter how good a liar Rukh was, he could never deny it vehemently enough to convince them it wasn’t him. By saving Thrawn’s dignity, he’d be disobeying his master’s first order post-betrayal.

If he wanted _Mal’ary’ush_ to trust him, he had to let her humiliate his master as she wished.

He handed the recording rod to her mate with no expression. He made sure the lens was turned toward them as he did so, capturing their faces before he turned the recording rod off with a flick of the thumb.

When he bowed again, he glanced up and met the _Mal’ary’ush’s_ eyes. She was smiling. She’d tested his loyalty; she thought he’d proved himself. If there was anyone among the Noghri she could trust, she thought it was him.

Rukh couldn’t be sure if what he felt at the sight of that smile was nausea or rage.


	6. Chapter 6

Two months passed before the _Mal’ary’ush_ trusted Rukh with his own outdated Y-wing and sent him to rendezvous with the _Chimaera_.

The Empire had been holding back its military initiative since the day of execution on Honoghr; there had been regular strafing runs on any of the precariously-placed New Republic bases and Interdictor Cruisers waiting to ambush shipments of supplies. Otherwise, Imperial bases and suppliers had hunkered down, playing active defense while they waited for orders. Now, a little more than sixty standard days later, Imperial activities were gaining momentum again, and the New Republic could only assume that Thrawn had survived and was now back in command.

Rukh transmitted his clearance codes in the space over Bastion at a healthy distance from the _Chimaera_ and waited with stoic blankness for the ship to strike him down. With other capital ships of the Empire, there might have been some muffled static over the comm system to clue him into what was going on — some stifled questions from the communications officer, perhaps, and a clipped reply from the officer on deck. But the _Chimaera_ was locked up tight, each crewmember benefiting from years of tutelage under Grand Admiral Thrawn, and nothing greeted Rukh but silence.

When the comm system finally hissed back into life, the officer said, “Cleared. Proceed to Docking Bay U-7. Prepare to be searched.”

The officer’s tone gave nothing away, but Rukh’s palms weren’t exactly sweating yet; he had faith in his master. If the _Mal’ary’ush_ had ordered him here, then he was certain Thrawn had known she eventually would do exactly this and prepared for it accordingly.

He guided his ship into the hangar, located his docking bay, and set the Y-wing down. Stormtroopers were already waiting there for him, their stances nigh identical and indicative of a true warrior’s instincts. When Rukh opened the transparisteel canopy, their scents assaulted his nose, betraying the unnatural stink of a clone.

They stepped forward, binding his hands with stuncuffs as they searched his ship — disabling the weapons systems, he noticed, so he would have neither laser cannons nor proton-torpedoes when he left. They rifled through his flight suit and removed the only item he’d brought with him that could be considered a weapon — a simple folding knife, not overly sharp and not even equipped with a vibro-blade.

He could tell from a change in their collective scents that it was time for him to speak.

“I request an audience with the Grand Admiral,” he said, his voice a toneless growl. The stormtroopers formed up around him, creating a box which almost hid him from the rest of the hangar’s view.

“March,” said the commander — to his troopers or to Rukh, Rukh didn’t know.

They walked the passageways of the _Chimaera_ in silence, giving Rukh all the opportunity he needed to eavesdrop on the officers and technicians passing by. Chatter from their comlinks gave him small glimpses into the _Chimaera’s_ movements, but small ones only. The bridge was silent; was that where they were taking him?

In the turbolift, Rukh felt the engine humming in the plates beneath his feet and knew they were taking him somewhere else. Not the brig; from the slow spin-up and quick spin-down of the turbolift, he knew they were headed for officers’ country, the subsection of quarters close to the bridge where the _Chimaera’s_ officers spent their time off-duty.

The stormtroopers led him, as he’d hoped they would, directly to Thrawn’s quarters. Only when they were stationed outside the door did the commander tongue his comlink on and say, “He’s here, sir.”

Rukh flared his nostrils, eager to catch anything he could through the durasteel door. It opened automatically, by remote sensor, and to his disappointment, there was no one waiting on the other side — only the empty chamber where he’d once lurked as Thrawn’s bodyguard, accosting anyone who requested access to his master’s chambers.

He could hear Thrawn speaking to the stormtroopers, his voice transformed into unintelligible static to anyone not wearing a helmet. The commander broke off from the formation and prodded Rukh forward with him, a blaster in one hand, the key to Rukh’s stuncuffs in the other.

They waited inside the chamber together as the door closed behind them and the door before them — the one leading to Thrawn’s quarters — hissed open.

Rukh’s heart pounded so hard it made his rib cage feel paper-thin. Finally, after such a long and dangerous journey, he felt his palms begin to sweat for the first time.

“The key, Commander,” Thrawn said.

The stormtrooper pressed the key into Thrawn’s open palm, his gloves undoubtedly staining Thrawn’s skin with their plastoid stink. Rukh watched long delicate fingers close around the key — fingers he’d touched two months ago to soothe Thrawn when the pain was at its worst; fingers he’d seen pulling futilely at the ties.

“Return his folding knife,” Thrawn said.

There was a sudden hint of spice in the commander’s scent — the smell of surprise. He obeyed at once, removing the confiscated knife from his belt and setting it on the floor near Rukh’s feet.

“You may go, Commander,” Thrawn said. “Dismissed.”

The scent of anxiety — concern, protectiveness — washed over Rukh as the stormtrooper stepped past him. He heard the trooper’s boots take him across the room almost silently; he heard the outer door open and close yet again.

And then he and Thrawn were alone.

“It’s been a long time, Rukh,” said Thrawn. His voice was modulated and not so different from what it had once been, before Noghri teeth had assaulted his throat and hot iron had left it a smoking mess of eschar and blood. He knelt before Rukh on the durasteel plates and pressed the magnetic stripe on the key against the stuncuffs’ sensor. They unlocked with a click.

Thrawn wasn’t shaking. His hands were steady, his eyes hooded, his face a mixture between disinterest and confidence. It was an expression fit for a king — for a master — someone secure in his own court, who knows his servants will never betray him. Except Thrawn’s servants already had — _this_ servant, who stood before him now with his hands unbound and his knife mere centimeters from his feet. If Rukh allowed himself to give into his desires, he could reach out and touch Thrawn’s hair — twist his fingers in it — pull him closer until his lips parted in an involuntary snarl and Rukh could smell the dark wet pulse of his lungs.

But Thrawn only knelt before him, almost as tall on his knees as Rukh was standing up, and did nothing. And Rukh stood before him and did nothing either, only gazed on his master and cataloged each physical change — the skin discoloration, the slight weight loss, the hair which had changed again from white to blue-black. Thrawn let Rukh gaze upon him, his expression placid and indulgent, his shoulders relaxed.

The thick scent in the room made one thing abundantly clear: Thrawn was afraid.

It was natural to be afraid. It was an unavoidable physical state that had little to do with Thrawn’s mind — cowardice was as foreign to him as laziness — and more to do with his body. Someone in the _Chimaera’s_ medical staff had replaced Thrawn’s wounded flesh with synthetics, which stood out as patches of near-white on his neck; Rukh could smell more extensive implants hidden beneath his uniform. But even with synthiflesh adhering to his bones, his muscles could not forget what had been done to him — and by whom. His body remembered Rukh as a traitor and a torturer, and that was why Thrawn’s breath hitched when Rukh bent his knees and knelt on the floor before him, bringing himself closer to Thrawn.

But his body remembered Rukh as a rescuer, too, and that was why Thrawn leaned into the touch. _Safety,_ his body told him. And at the same time, it told him, _Stay away._

Rukh let the stuncuffs fall to the floor between them. He uncurled one hand and lifted it, projecting each move carefully, until he’d covered his face with his fingers crooked in the Noghri mark of shame. With his head bowed, he could see Thrawn’s knee touching his, could feel the other man’s muscles tensing compulsively through his uniform, could smell the spike of adrenaline that rushed through Thrawn and slicked his skin with cold sweat.

He stayed still as Thrawn stood and stepped away.

“We have work to do,” Thrawn told him, his voice still quiet and self-assured. He unfolded a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead almost casually, as if it meant nothing, as if Rukh couldn’t smell the rapid beating of his heart or the sickly scent of fear clinging to his skin.

Thrawn folded the handkerchief again, his movements neat and precise, and casually gestured for Rukh to follow him out of the den and into his bedroom. Not his office. His bedroom — his safest and most vulnerable place — the room where he slept, where someday he might—

“Come, Rukh,” said Thrawn. “You have much to tell me and much to learn before I send you back to the Jedi.”

Yet Thrawn didn’t move. His body was angled in a half-turn, indicating where he wanted Rukh to go, but not fully turning to face the door himself. Unwilling to turn his back on a subordinate now; perhaps, if the spike of distress was anything to go by, he was as yet _incapable_ of turning his back. Rukh could smell the acrid scent of something the Noghri called _bal’ashra_ — a state of remembering that was so intense it altered a person’s scent. In Basic, one might call it a flashback, but then one would lose the nuance that came with a term like _bal’ashra_ — a nuance which allowed for the fact that any surge in adrenaline was pleasant as well as distressing, that warriors could feel at peace even in battle, that fear for one’s life might be so inextricably entangled with exhilaration that it became impossible to tell them apart. Thrawn’s mind was buried in memories of the execution ceremony; not all those memories were unpleasant, a fact the humans who served him would never understand.

Thrawn refused to turn his back on Rukh — his betrayer, his torturer, his rapist.

Thrawn opened his bedroom doors to Rukh — his most intimate companion. His protector. His friend.

Only when he’d stepped past Thrawn and knew the other man couldn’t see it did Rukh allow a smile of triumph to spread across his face.


	7. Chapter 7

There were certain scents that clung to Thrawn after the execution; some grew stronger every time Rukh saw him. Others faded into the background with time. All were new.

There was the chemical scent of hair dye which hid Thrawn’s trauma-whitened hair from his crew. Rukh itched to steal the bottle, but knew it was futile; Thrawn would only procure more while he was gone. There was the seedy, half-living scent of the synthetic implants which had bound themselves to Thrawn’s bones and now consumed far more than their share of his daily nutrients — the loss of which Thrawn hardly seemed inclined to supplement.

There was the scent of masturbation — harsh, joyless, and compulsive, the scent so thick that Rukh could almost see Thrawn sequestering himself away from the crew as many as five times a day, his movements grim and economical, his damaged organs forcing him to come dry.

There were other scents, too — blood and torn skin, the sweat of other men on his body. Reckless encounters. Before the execution ceremony, if Thrawn had ever felt so compelled to seek out company, he’d had the wisdom and patience necessary to do it discreetly, away from the ship. Now Rukh could smell the faint scent of a human man on Thrawn’s skin only to walk past that same man, his scent a thousand times stronger, in the _Chimaera’s_ halls — a trooper, a technician, a pilot, an officer.

Anyone who was willing, Rukh suspected. Anyone who would obey Thrawn’s command to fuck but not touch, to spare him no pain.

When his meetings with Thrawn were finished, Rukh took regular detours on his way back to the hangar bay. He located these men — whoever Thrawn had slept with latest — and followed them a while, assessing them. Sometimes the pattern broke, allowing someone in who didn’t fit the type, but mostly, the men Thrawn sought out were a bit shorter than the average man; stocky and strong; voices that growled as deep into the bass line as a human could go.

One man, Rukh noted, had fingernails grown out a little longer than Imperial regulation — an infraction Thrawn hadn’t reprimanded him for — and on those fingernails, there was the scent of blood. Thrawn’s blood. Thrawn’s skin.

 _Scratch me_ , Thrawn might have told him.

Or more precisely, _Claw at me._

It might have dismayed a lesser Noghri to find his master engaged in such base pursuits. But there was a human saying Rukh had picked up during his years with Thrawn _: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery_. It didn’t bother him at all that Thrawn, months after the fact, was reenacting their day together on Honoghr; it caused him no distress to know Thrawn took himself in hand each day and imagined Rukh on top of him, even if his own touch caused him pain.

Every new man — every stand-in, every impersonator — who tasted Thrawn’s flesh did nothing but stoke the fire of triumph inside Rukh to greater heights. He relished smelling them on Thrawn’s skin; he savored the chance to stalk them through the halls, to note their petty similarities to him, to know that even when he was absent, Thrawn craved his presence so much it qualified as obsession.

So Rukh walked into Thrawn’s quarters that day already abuzz with pride, his lips ready to curve into a smile.

And then he smelled Gilad Pellaeon on Thrawn’s skin.


	8. Chapter 8

It was not unusual — before the execution or after — to smell alcohol on the Grand Admiral’s breath. When Rukh stepped into Thrawn’s quarters for their meeting, he smelled Corellian whiskey in the air and thought nothing of it until he’d bowed before Thrawn to show his fealty. Before he rose — while his forehead was still pressed to the deck — Thrawn looked down at him and said,

“Rise, Rukh. Have you eaten?”

Thrawn’s breath smelled of absorbic and bacta, a bitter antiseptic mixture that hedged close to alcohol — at least, when analyzed by humans, whose noses were far less perceptive than Rukh’s — but certainly didn’t resemble Corellian whiskey. The bacta circulated through Thrawn’s organs, relieving the strain of healing on a day-by-day basis most people never needed. The absorbic was a personal idiosyncrasy.

The whiskey, Rukh realized, was not coming from his master at all. His eyes shifted past Thrawn to a low table not far from the trooper’s bunk built into the bulkhead.

“I have not eaten,” he said.

Thrawn stepped away, extending his arm toward the table in an inviting gesture. He seated himself on the chair nearby, legs crossed, posture at ease. After a moment’s hesitation, Rukh joined him, sitting in the chair opposite Thrawn — and noticing the fresh scent of Gilad Pellaeon clinging to its plastoid frame.

The human’s reek was everywhere. On the table, on the eating utensils and plates, on the flat sweetcake in the middle of a carrying container.

“I am not fond of sweet things,” Rukh said with a tone of firm apology.

“ _Ryshcate_ is not quite so sweet as it seems,” Thrawn told him. He lifted a hand palm up, silently requesting something, and Rukh understood at once. He removed his folding knife from his flight suit; there was a spike of adrenaline and arousal from Thrawn as the blade _snicked_ into view. With delicate fingers, Thrawn took the knife from him, examining its blade in the light, testing it with his thumb. He licked the resulting bead of blood away without glancing at Rukh, whose mouth had gone dry; at the same time, he cut into the cake, its moist flesh parting to let a fuller scent waft into the air. Rukh could smell nuts baked into the cake which shared a scent of origin with Pellaeon, meaning they could only be found on Corellia.

As if he could read Rukh’s mind, Thrawn said, “ _Vweliu_ nuts. Captain Pellaeon traded one of his prized bottles of Corellian whiskey for them. The other bottle, I suspect he baked into this.”

He prodded the slice of cake he’d cut, failing to hide his distaste; he kept all signs of it off his face, but not out of his scent.

“Do try it,” he invited Rukh.

Rukh didn’t want to. _Pellaeon_ wouldn’t want him to.

He lifted his fork and, under Thrawn’s piercing red gaze, took a bite. The _vweliu_ nuts and whiskey worked together to dispel the sweetness, giving the flavor a woodier sting than Rukh had expected from scent alone.

“To the celebration of life,” Thrawn murmured with a sour little smile on his lips. When Rukh glanced at him curiously, the cake melting in his mouth, Thrawn’s smile changed — faded — and he gave a one-shouldered shrug. “A Corellian tradition, I’ve been told,” he said, pointing to the cake. “And every tradition comes with its invocations and toasts.”

The cake had turned to a bitter paste on Rukh’s tongue. He swallowed and felt it slide, cold and wet, down his throat. _To the celebration of life_ was a toast, not an invocation, and Thrawn wouldn’t have mentioned both terms if they weren’t equally relevant in this situation. He blinked slowly, expressing his curiosity without saying a word, and after a moment of expressionless contemplation, Thrawn inclined his head and decided to answer the unspoken question.

“It is traditional for one of us to first say, ‘We share this _ryshcate_ as we share our celebration of life,’” he said. His lips twitched as if attempting a smile, but the rest of his face didn’t cooperate. “As you are unfamiliar with the tradition, I skipped the invocation and went straight to the toast.”

He’d lost fifteen pounds since execution day, Rukh estimated. At Thrawn’s command, he ate the entire slice of _ryshcate_ , his movements tasteless and mechanical. He could smell Pellaeon’s desperation on the utensils, his anxiety on the plates.

“The _ryshcate_ is eaten,” Thrawn murmured, his eyes on his datapad, “to celebrate victories, anniversaries, name days, and other moments of occasion, such as...” His lips quirked again; his gaze flitted up to meet Rukh’s, his expression wistful but difficult to read. “…funerals,” he said.

Rukh’s mouth was dry. He choked the rest of the _ryshcate_ down and pushed his plate away.

“Finished?” asked Thrawn lightly, his concentration back on his datapad. “Have as much as you like, Rukh. I’m not fond of the texture.”

Mutely, with his tongue clicking dryly in his mouth, Rukh shook his head. For a moment, Thrawn acted as if he hadn’t seen the gesture; then, with a faintly irritated _click_ , he blackened his datapad and glanced up coolly to meet Rukh’s eyes. There was a silent order in his gaze, a command for Rukh to commence his report.

“The New Republic,” said Rukh, then paused to work saliva into his mouth and try again. The cake had an aftertaste that coated his tongue like soot. “The New Republic intends to request a peace conference within the week, Master.”

With a flat look in his eyes, Thrawn covered the _ryshcate_ , dimming the thick, woody smell of Corellian whiskey. He’d predicted the terms of the peace proposal — and the timing, the exact number of Senators who would sign it — with eerie precision, but as Rukh went through his report, he could detect no flicker of triumph in Thrawn’s scent. There was no pride, either, and no anticipation or excitement, nor even satisfaction at a job well done.

Thrawn accepted the news of his impending victory with the same flat absence of emotion Rukh would expect to see after a routine supply review.

“Peace, then,” he said when Rukh was finished.

“Peace with a stipulation,” Rukh said. Thrawn’s hands were folded on his knee, his eyes fixed absently to the _ryshcate_. “They wish to meet in person to discuss the treaty before signing it. You choose the time and place.”

He saw a ghost of a smile touch Thrawn’s lips. There was no scent of emotion to accompany it — nothing more than the nauseating scent of _ryshcate_ and the slightest hint of _bal’ashra._

“Very well, then,” said Thrawn. “I have a convoy and station prepared. When the invitation arrives, I will inform the Rebels to meet me at Bastion; take care to be there, too.”

He fiddled with the _ryshcate’s_ carrier case as he spoke, the pad of his thumb running unconsciously over patterns of scent left behind by Pellaeon where his sweating palms had clutched the plastoid. He’d hoped Thrawn would eat it; he’d thought perhaps that if he appealed to Thrawn’s appreciation of other cultures — if he offered him something so meaningful and sentimental that it was less like a meal and more like a supplication — that Thrawn would break his self-imposed starvation and eat. Instead, Thrawn offered it to his one-time betrayer, allowed Rukh to take the token that was meant for him — to save him, to symbolize years of loyalty and care.

There was only one way to interpret a message like that, but the vicious glow that had started in Rukh’s gut like a fire when Thrawn invited him to eat now faded, and faded fast. Because now, apparently unaware of what he was doing, Thrawn combined his scent with Pellaeon’s in front of Rukh’s eyes, ran the tender skin of his fingers over the plastoid and absorbed Pellaeon’s dry sweat into his pores.

All of this as if to say, _My invitation to eat was meaningless. Your efforts to choke Pellaeon’s gift down your throat were meaningless. This unconscious combination of scents — this peace treaty overture — this final campaign — are meaningless, too._

If Rukh allowed himself the indulgence of imagination, he thought he could see the weight of memory in Thrawn’s eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

The _Chimaera’s_ current location was a secret even to Rukh. The New Republic’s tacticians took special note of the fact that it took Thrawn’s convoy two weeks to reach Bastion, but their frenzied mathematics to figure out his vector from there were useless. Thrawn could have flown from the other side of the galaxy in hyperspace, or from nearby in sublight, or from any direction in any combination of the two, simply to throw them off. 

Regardless, the New Republicans were already stationed on Bastion — and being watched closely — by the time Thrawn showed up, appearing noiselessly behind them as they stood discussing him. 

“I’d wager the holos are full of shit,” Solo said. “For all we know, he died on Honoghr.”

Organa Solo glanced Rukh’s way but said nothing to defend him — for whether he knew it or not, Solo had just insulted Rukh. It was he who visited Thrawn regularly, and with his sense of smell and superior perception, he would know better than anyone whether Thrawn had died and been replaced. A different master (a better master, Rukh thought) might have corrected Solo quietly but firmly. 

Organa Solo only bit her lip.

“He’s been beating us soundly since the incident at Borleias,” said Skywalker. “Whether it’s him or not, it doesn’t really change our situation.”

“Except _they’re_ not loyal to an imposter,” said Solo, jerking his thumb toward the stone-faced Imperials standing guard. “They’re loyal to Thrawn. If it turns out he isn’t even _alive_ …”

“He’s alive,” said Organa Solo. Even now, Rukh could smell the intoxicating scent of Thrawn coming down the corridor, too quiet to be heard by the humans. “Alive, but hiding something. I suspect he hasn’t recovered nearly as well as we thought.”

“Bedbound?” Skywalker asked. He paused as if in thought, and Rukh could practically see him ticking back over the footage from the execution day — when so much muscle had been stripped from Thrawn’s thighs that he couldn’t move his legs in the slightest. “Disabled?”

“Disfigured, I bet,” Solo said. “It’s all about image with Imperials. He isn’t gonna show his face unless his vanity is intact.” His hands were in his pockets; he glanced casually over his shoulder when he felt a brush of air and then did a double-take at the sight of Thrawn behind him. “Uh, guys?” he said, his face settling into an unfriendly mask.

With silent dignity, the New Republicans turned, knowing from Solo’s voice who they would see. They sized Thrawn up; he studied them back, his face giving nothing away, and then glanced downward with something like a smile.

“Rukh,” said Thrawn politely. 

It filled Rukh with a warm glow to hear himself greeted first, before any of the New Republicans — and to see Thrawn looking down at him so intimately, his face almost soft. It was a convincing illusion ruined by one thing only: the scent of tension that seemed to crackle and spark on the surface of Thrawn’s skin. 

Rukh had been told what part to play — by both his masters. He cast Organa Solo a dubious look, letting his misgivings and hostility show, allowing her to misinterpret them however she liked. To Thrawn, he gave a brief and perfunctory bow, muttering a greeting before he skulked away to stand among the New Republicans. 

They recovered quickly from the shock of seeing him face-to-face for the first time since the day of execution. But they weren’t quick enough to hide their reactions — not from Thrawn, who could read anyone’s face with the same ease he read datacards, and not from Rukh, who could smell the shock and turmoil wafting off his false mistress and her kin. 

Although Thrawn stood before them with the easy confidence and grace of a true predator, it was impossible for him to hide the changes to his body. Nearly thirty pounds had been shorn off him since the day of execution, whittling him away to the last few remnants of muscle and bone. His facial bones stood out starkly, giving his skin a paper-thin aspect that only highlighted the dark hollows beneath his eyes. His throat was a column of pale discoloration, covered almost entirely in synthiflesh, and he had an odor — Rukh was certain even the humans could smell it — of bacta and alcohol.

Worse than that was the weariness that clung to him like a funeral shroud. He seemed to waver slightly on his feet, and it was theoretically possible the New Republicans would see that as a predatory shift of weight from one foot to the other, as if in preparation for an attack, but Rukh suspected they knew the truth — that Thrawn _had_ to sway a little if he wanted to dispel the lightness in his head and keep his knees from giving out.

It couldn’t be that bad, Rukh told himself. Perhaps it was the change in setting that made him judge his master so harshly. He was accustomed to seeing Thrawn onboard the _Chimaera_ — in artificial lighting and gravity, on his own turf — and this new fragile appearance was just an illusion brought on by natural sunlight and the mind-tricking compendium of scents coming at Rukh from all sides.

It was hard to convince himself. 

“Grand Admiral,” Organa Solo said. She stepped forward with her hands in her sleeves, inclining her head somewhat in greeting. Thrawn’s hands were clasped behind his back.

“Counselor,” he said, his voice level. He nodded briefly to Skywalker and even to Solo, whom Rukh would have ignored. His eyes shifted briefly over their hands, as if he were strongly considering going for a handshake, but in the end, he didn’t move. “Let’s dispense with formalities,” he said instead. “I have a conference room prepared for our use, if you’ll just follow Lieutenant Wythal…”

He gestured to one of the stone-faced Imperials, who clicked his heels and turned in a crisp about-face to lead the New Republicans away. They hesitated a moment, perhaps waiting for Thrawn to take the lead, but he stared back at them placidly and gave no sign of moving. Only when they’d taken their first few steps down the hallway did Thrawn fall into step at the back of the group.

The scent of anxiety started off small, and it was emanating from the New Republicans more than from Thrawn. But the longer they walked, the thicker the scent became, and eventually, Rukh could scarcely smell the New Republicans at all. He looked back at Thrawn — his face was a stoic mask, his posture relaxed. Rukh could see no visible sweat, but he could smell it beneath the fabric of Thrawn’s uniform. Anxious sweat. Fight-or-flight sweat.

He watched Thrawn try and fail to repress the urge to glance behind him, checking to make sure there was no one at his back.

Earlier, when he’d glanced at the New Republicans’ hands, he hadn’t been considering a greeting, Rukh realized. He’d been checking them for weapons — irrationally, because they’d already been searched, and because if they _did_ have weapons, they wouldn’t pull them out in full view of Thrawn without shooting to kill. 

Thrawn turned, checked over his shoulder again. The scent of anxiety was overwhelming. When he turned back, his face was expressionless; he unfolded a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead before the New Republicans could see.

He met Rukh’s eyes with a faint, self-deprecating smile, as if his fear were nothing more than a joke. Rukh bowed his head; he couldn’t smile back.


	10. Chapter 10

On the first day of the peace conference, Rukh could smell the unpleasant body odors of five different Imperials clinging to Thrawn’s skin. Now those scents had faded, washed away gradually by countless showers, not yet replaced by any of the men stationed here with them. It surprised Rukh — and inspired some darker emotions, too — that Thrawn was able to shower without remembering the day of execution, without wishing there was someone there to care for him the way Rukh had in his hour of greatest need.

Those five men had touched Thrawn, touched him violently, violated him at his insistence, made him bleed. There were bruises beneath his uniform, the faint smell of dried blood released whenever he uncrossed his legs. And yet, none of the five had managed to hurt him enough to satisfy him.

Now, with the tenth day of the conference waxing to an end, Rukh watched Thrawn’s eyes shift to Solo, studying him with the type of cold calculation he usually reserved for battle. Beneath the table, Thrawn’s fingers shifted, his gloves off, his thumbnail grinding down on the vulnerable skin of his palm until it drew blood. Even then, the spot of white-blue synthiflesh scarcely stung; Rukh could pick up on no significant scent of pain and had done enough reading and observation to know the synthetics were almost entirely numb.

Thrawn’s eyes flicked up again. As he spoke to the New Republicans, his gaze drifted casually, inexorably, to Solo. There was no scent of arousal coming from him, but there _was_ a scent of need, of compulsion, of hunger. Thrawn was sizing up the candidates — rejecting the _Mal’ary’ush_ and Skywalker as a matter of course — and contemplating his best shot.

Solo had planted the recording rod, he told himself. Solo, whether he admitted it to himself or not, had a desire to see the enemy humiliated. Solo had kept the footage, uploaded it to a locked channel on the New Republic’s HoloNet. 

Thrawn glanced at Rukh, silently asking him a question. Had he ever smelled arousal off Han Solo when Thrawn was mentioned? 

Rukh forced his eyes forward and refused to answer. It would be unwise for the master to seek a dalliance with the _Mal’ary’ush’s_ mate. He tried to tell himself Thrawn was not unwise — that he was in control of his compulsions — but he found himself remembering against his will how Thrawn had turned and looked over his shoulder in the hallway despite the lack of threat, how he’d scanned the hands of the New Republicans for guns. 

When the meeting adjourned, Rukh was relieved to see Solo and the _Mal’ary’ush_ leave together. He was even more relieved to see Thrawn leave alone.


	11. Chapter 11

He witnessed the rejection. It came late at night; Rukh tailed Solo when he left the quarters arranged for him, though he tailed him only as a matter of course — he felt it wise to watch anyone who explored the station at Bastion, even if Thrawn had ordered the guards to give the New Republicans at least the _appearance_ of free reign.

Rukh stayed out of sight. He watched Solo explore the station aimlessly, doing his best to break any and all unspoken rules. As they neared Thrawn’s quarters — unknowingly to Solo, who had no particular destination in mind — Rukh’s tension gradually grew higher, a sense of dread and possessiveness in his gut.

He was unsurprised when Solo ran into Thrawn in the passageway; he’d smelled Thrawn’s blood long before they ever saw him, the sweet, attractive, familiar scent he’d long since grown to love. He stationed himself around the corner, hidden from Solo but not from Thrawn, where he could see everything that happened.

He saw thinly-disguised hunger on Thrawn’s face — smelled his desperation, his eagerness to be tortured yet again. From Solo, Rukh could smell first disbelief and then disdain.

“You’re kidding me,” Solo said. “Is this a joke?”

If Thrawn said anything in response, Rukh couldn’t hear it. He watched Solo’s body language shift from suspicion to something almost like pity. Thrawn saw the change, too; he pulled away subtly, his face closed off and cold, and in the ensuing silence, Solo’s body language changed again, hedging toward uncertainty.

He walked away from Thrawn without another word. He stalked past Rukh, giving him only the quickest of accusatory glances, as though it were Rukh’s fault Thrawn had asked him. Solo’s footsteps rang out down the hall long after he was out of sight, and eventually the sound faded and his scent disappeared, and Rukh and Thrawn were alone.

He stepped out from his hiding place silently and stood facing Thrawn in the hall. The other man’s face was unreadable, his scent in turmoil.

“Rukh,” he said levelly, his voice soft enough to entice Rukh closer. When they were only a meter or so away from each other, Rukh stopped, his nostrils flaring, his breath coming fast. He knew Thrawn could read his face, see the arousal there.

Thrawn hesitated. His lips parted, but he didn’t speak. After a long moment, he turned and gestured toward his quarters instead, the door unguarded and unlocked. Reckless, Rukh thought, but something about the open door had him salivating.

“Come, Rukh,” Thrawn said.

His tone was wrong, his voice no longer level. There was a barely noticeable waver in it which seemed to grab Rukh by the guts and tug him forward, each step unstoppable. Thrawn closed the door behind him; the room beyond was darkened and fundamentally not Thrawn’s, marked by his scent but not filled with it like his quarters on the _Chimaera_.

Thrawn circled Rukh slowly, but not to study him — only to get around him. He sat on his narrow bed, his expression unreadable.

“You may touch me,” he said.

Rukh didn’t move.

“I permit it.” Thrawn’s thighs were trembling, the movement barely visible through his clothes. His voice was steady — but then, it was a whisper, and whispers were easy to keep steady. Rukh held himself back only a moment longer, his muscles so tense he could scarcely keep from leaping forward.

Thrawn’s legs parted, a sense of arousal and distress greeting Rukh in equal parts. It was intoxicating, almost impossible to resist — but he could think of one thing better. With reverent hands, he lifted Thrawn’s wrist and pulled his white leather glove down until he could press his nose against bare skin. Thrawn’s pulse point beat against his nostril; the scent of his blood — his time in a part of the galaxy unlike anything Rukh had ever seen; his childhood; his ancestry — rushed down Rukh’s throat and into his lungs, making his breath come quick.

Thrawn’s free hand came up, fingers curling loosely around Rukh’s neck — not holding him back, not warning him, just touching. Skin against skin. That was what Thrawn wanted, Rukh knew. Someone to touch him. Someone to hurt him. Someone to take him. Someone to comfort him again when it was over.

Not _someone_. Rukh.

With a deep inhalation, Rukh trailed his fingers up Thrawn’s tunic. His claws were sharp enough to slice through the threads without effort, but he didn’t allow that to happen; he took care with Thrawn’s uniform, as befit his master, and opened the tunic to see the corrugated ridges of his ribs beneath a too-thin undershirt — the patches of synthiflesh over his chest and shoulders — the odor of dread and disgust, a buzzing desire to touch and be touched, anxiety mingled with lust and-

Rukh’s hands settled on Thrawn’s thighs, which trembled in fits and spurts, his skin so hot it almost burned Rukh through the fabric. He pushed Thrawn’s undershirt up with his nose, revealing a hollow stomach, protruding hip bones, the dip of his navel. He pressed his face there, against Thrawn’s stomach — against the center of all life — and felt the warmth beneath his hands suddenly disappear. The skin against his nose turned cold and clammy. The shivering started again, then stopped.

And Thrawn’s scent changed, taking on the unmistakable spice of _bal’ashra_. Remembrance.

“You’re tying me to the stakes,” he said. His voice was reasonable and calm, but when Rukh looked up, there was something in Thrawn’s eyes that set his skin crawling. A certain lack of focus or glassiness — it was hard to tell through the red glow.

“I’m not,” said Rukh cautiously.

In the same reasonable tone, like they were discussing breakfast options, Thrawn said, “You are.”

The next thing Rukh knew, he was slammed against the floor, his head ringing from a blow he hadn’t seen coming.

It was rare for anyone to get the drop on him — and while Thrawn was exceptional, had somehow managed not to telegraph his intentions even through his scent, his advantage didn’t last. Rukh could have broken Thrawn’s hold on him a hundred different ways. In less than a second, he could have been up off the floor, his balance regained; could have evaded Thrawn’s grasp effortlessly and struck a dozen counterstrikes before Thrawn had the chance to hit him again.

He did none of these things. He lay on the floor where Thrawn had pinned him, protecting his head with his arms and his ribs with his bent legs. He heard ragged breathing, felt Thrawn’s fists raining down on his back, his abdomen, his thighs and the back of his head.

The master wanted to hurt him. His smell had changed, taking on the overwhelming sour scent of fight-or-flight. His master _needed_ to hurt him, needed to lash out, to fight back or risk losing himself — his dignity — his identity.

And Rukh would let him. He closed his eyes and turned his face toward the floor, letting Thrawn land another blow against his skull; he fought the urge to evade or counter the attacks and forced himself to bear through it instead. Thrawn was not an unformidable opponent, he knew; an experienced warrior in his own right, it was entirely possible that submitting to him could, under ordinary circumstances, turn deadly. But the blows struck against Rukh now held none of the power Thrawn had once been capable of. His movements were weak, weary — harsh enough to hurt a civilian, harsh enough to cause some discomfort, but not strong enough to cause any real damage to someone like Rukh.

Thrawn stopped fighting him. Curled up in a ball, Rukh heard his master fall to his knees, so close that he could feel Thrawn’s uniform brushing against his arm. He heard a quiet, shaky exhalation, felt Thrawn draw away across the floor. When he opened his eyes, bruised but not broken, Rukh needed a moment to locate Thrawn; he’d tucked himself into the far corner of the room, his tunic still undone, his hair disheveled and his breathing harsh.

They stared at each other, red eyes glaring into gray.


	12. Chapter 12

Rukh stayed in the fresher until the bath was fully drawn, the temperature perfect for Thrawn’s skin. There had been a time once when he could slip into the fresher during Thrawn’s showers on the _Chimaera_ and watch him as he bathed; Thrawn had never reprimanded him, had neither minded nor enjoyed it. He’d stood there more than once and let the water drip from his hair, down his face and chest, making no effort to hide himself as Rukh watched.

It had been a long time, Rukh thought, since Thrawn had tolerated his presence like that. But the time would come again. He turned the water off, but ignored the substances lined against the tub walls in bottles; he would never willingly pour a scented substance into the master’s bath and mar his natural smell.

With that done, he turned and looked at the open door with the darkened bedroom just beyond it. It was quiet out there; now that the faucet was off, he could hear nothing at all. Rukh cocked his head, listening closer, and made out Thrawn’s faint, even breathing.

It had been an hour since his beating at Thrawn’s hands; he felt his bruises establishing themselves with a hot throb of pleasant misery, marking him with Thrawn’s scent wherever he’d been struck. He could smell Thrawn’s blood in the air, and when he retreated to the bedroom proper, walking softly on the pads of his feet, he could just make out the glimmer of split skin and dark blood on Thrawn’s knuckles.

His master still sat in the corner, no longer trapped inside his memories, but not quite cogent yet, either. His head was bowed, his arms crossed loosely over his knees. When Rukh touched him, he hardly stirred.

“Master,” Rukh whispered. Thrawn folded into his arms so easily Rukh was scarcely aware of it happening until he was clutching Thrawn close to his chest. Half-conscious, still seeking the touch of another living being, Thrawn murmured,

“Kill me.”

Rukh said nothing. A Noghri served by giving the master what he needed, not what he wanted. He reminded himself of that again, his bruises still fresh. With one hand, he rubbed Thrawn’s back in circles, letting his claws rake gently against the fabric. Thrawn made no protest; the touch wasn’t forceful enough to hurt, and Rukh suspected — he had no way of knowing for certain — that if any of Thrawn’s dalliances, if Pellaeon had touched him so gently, he would have snarled and pushed them away. Here, now, Thrawn burrowed closer to Rukh, welcoming the touch much like he had earlier, in a different manner.

He seemed far more willing for that touch to be pleasant rather than harmful now. Rukh held him, his body aching, his soul silently triumphant, until he could smell the shift from wakefulness to something closer to sleep.

“Come,” he said.

In the fresher, Rukh stripped his master with none of the frenzy of before. Now, his hands were allowed to linger; now, for the first time since the execution, Thrawn truly permitted him to be gentle. On Thrawn’s skin, Rukh smelled exhaustion and faded adrenaline; the distress from earlier was almost entirely washed away, and in its place, a childish, animalistic need for comfort. Thrawn’s limbs were loose and relaxed, his eyes sliding closed as he allowed Rukh to undress him, not even flinching when Rukh pulled his trousers down past all-white thighs.

There was no reason to flinch. It was nothing Rukh hadn’t seen before.

He left Thrawn’s uniform folded on the counter and guided him into the tub, noticing how Thrawn leaned into his touch and clutched at his arm for support. The water lapped around him and left his skin — his real skin — a beautiful glistening blue while it turned the foreign-smelling synthetics into something ugly, like the white flesh of a mushroom after the rain. Rukh grabbed no sponge; he poured unscented soap into his hands and applied it directly to Thrawn’s skin.

He let Rukh bathe him without argument or defense — let Rukh’s hands trail over his arms and wash his hair, his abdomen, between his legs. Thrawn’s head tipped back, his throat exposed and vulnerable as he slipped into a dreamless daze. When Rukh’s fingers trailed over the synthiflesh, Thrawn leaned unconsciously into the touch, forcing the points of Rukh’s claws into his skin, willing the numbness away.

It was the warm water and the feeling of Rukh’s skin against his own that lulled him to sleep in the end. Rukh studied Thrawn’s restful face, eyed the pulse point thrumming gently under his jaw, washed the blood from his knuckles as gently as he could.

He was Thrawn’s rescuer again. He could smell this fact emanating from Thrawn’s split skin when he lifted his hands and pressed his nose against the scrapes. He could smell his own scent mixed inexorably with Thrawn’s, his seed marking Thrawn as his own, Thrawn’s imprint marking Rukh as his.

It was easy to deny his arousal today. With the master in the bath before him, nude and wet and sleeping, it would be so simple to fulfil their desires, to ease Thrawn’s tension. Rukh’s hands could bring him peace — but not today. He let the fire inside of him die down, the flames smoldering into ineffectual black coals. Someday, Thrawn’s mind would catch up to his body and he would realize how much Rukh meant to him — how safe he was with Rukh, who knew him (every inch of him) better than anyone else. Someday, he would be able to confront the true nature of their relationship, to admit it to himself in full. Someday, he would give himself to Rukh willingly — and not out of desperation, but because he would recognize that Rukh was what he needed. Above all, Thrawn valued competence, loyalty, adaptability, strength. Over the course of a year, Rukh had gone a long way to proving he possessed those qualities and more. He was Thrawn’s servant, Thrawn’s protector, Thrawn’s spy. Thrawn hated his dishonored flesh; Rukh would show him there was no such thing as dishonor, not among the Noghri and his master.

Rukh turned Thrawn’s injured hand palm up and kissed the exposed skin of his inner wrist, felt Thrawn’s heartbeat drumming faint but strong against his lips.

Someday.


End file.
